Case Study · Curricular Data Analysis · STEM Education
Employer surveys show that 86.9% of hiring managers rank professionalism and ethics as fundamental — yet only 44.2% consider new STEM graduates adequately prepared. This study asks: where does that gap enter the curriculum? Using a purpose-built audit instrument, all 74 mathematics courses and 469 intended learning outcomes of a Latin American research university were systematically coded across six Human-Centred Professionalism dimensions, then cross-analysed with Anderson & Krathwohl's revised Bloom's taxonomy. The results locate the gap with precision: it lives in the engineering service courses, and its roots are cognitive.
Complete mathematics catalogue
Across 5 curricular strata
HCP Coverage Index, E2 (16 courses)
Expected vs. demonstrated (NACE 2025)
Headline Finding
"Engineering service courses — serving the largest and most professionally relevant student population — average an HCP Coverage Index of 2.1%, with zero presence of inclusion, ethics, or emotional wellbeing across all 16 courses and 142 learning outcomes."
Context & Instrument
The analysis starts from a structural hypothesis: the professional readiness gap is not a failure of individual instructors — it is built into the formal curriculum before any student enters a classroom. The first task was to construct a systematic instrument capable of detecting this deficit at the document level.
Six Human-Centred Professionalism (HCP) dimensions were operationalised using indicator dictionaries grounded in two validated frameworks — Tucker et al.'s Human-Centered Engineering Design (HCED, 2023) and the Aspire Alliance's Inclusive Professional Framework (IPF, 2021) — and aligned with ABET accreditation criteria. Each of the 469 ILOs across 74 courses was coded 0 (Absent), 1 (Implicit), or 2 (Explicit) per dimension. A composite HCP Coverage Index (ICHP = Σcodes / 12 × 100%) was computed per course. A convergent analysis then classified each ILO using Anderson & Krathwohl's revised taxonomy across six cognitive levels and four knowledge types.
Complete mathematics catalogue (MAT sigla) of a Latin American research university — 74 courses, 469 ILOs, five curricular strata (E1–E5) serving engineering, science, and pedagogy programmes.
6 dimensions, 3-point scale (0/1/2). ICHP = Σ(D1–D6) / 12 × 100%. Supplementary HCP Diversity Index (IDHCP) measures breadth across dimensions. Indicator dictionary includes 110 Spanish-language verb mappings.
Every ILO classified across Anderson & Krathwohl's 6 × 4 matrix. Metrics per course: Cognitive Complexity Index (CCI), Knowledge Dimension Index (KDI), Taxonomic Diversity Index (TDI), HCP Preparedness Score (HCPPS).
Operates at the intended curriculum — formal ILO documentation. The enacted curriculum requires Phase 2 validation against classroom instruments such as the Faculty Inclusive Teaching Survey (FITS; Dukes et al., 2024).
Finding 1 · HCP Dimensions
The catalogue exhibits surface-layer professionalism: Communication (D5) and Empathy/Relational Practice (D1) appear at detectable rates because they map onto familiar disciplinary habits — explaining proofs, collaborative problem-solving. The deeper competencies that employers and ABET require are near-absent. Emotional Wellbeing (D6) registers zero presence across all 74 courses. Inclusion (D2, 1.4%) and Ethics (D3, 4.1%) are effectively absent. This is the curricular signature that predicts the employer readiness deficit.
| Dim. | Name | % Present (implicit + explicit) | Courses absent |
|---|---|---|---|
| D1 | Empathy & Relational Practice | 50 / 74 | |
| D2 | Inclusion & Diversity Awareness | 73 / 74 | |
| D3 | Ethics & Social Responsibility | 71 / 74 | |
| D4 | Reflective Professional Identity | 65 / 74 | |
| D5 | Person-Centred Communication | 41 / 74 | |
| D6 | Emotional Wellbeing & Self-Regulation | 74 / 74 |
Finding 2 · By Stratum & Cognitive Level
Disaggregating by stratum reveals that the gap is not distributed evenly — it concentrates with near-total intensity in E2 (engineering service courses), the stratum with the highest professional significance and the lowest ICHP (2.1%). Students in these programmes complete 4–5 mathematics courses without encountering a single ILO related to ethics, inclusion, reflective identity, or emotional wellbeing.
The convergent taxonomic analysis reveals why: the curriculum's cognitive centre of gravity sits in Apply × Procedural (97 ILOs, 37.1%). The cells where professional reasoning operates — Evaluate × Metacognitive and Create × Metacognitive — contain zero ILOs across the entire catalogue. The word "validate" does not appear once in 469 learning outcomes.
Mean ICHP by Curricular Stratum
HCP Coverage Index (0–100%). E2 serves engineering — highest enrolment, most professionally relevant, lowest coverage.
ILO Distribution by Cognitive Level
469 ILOs via Anderson & Krathwohl's taxonomy. "Evaluate" — where professional judgement lives — accounts for just 2.6%.
Declared Graduate Competencies vs. Curricular Delivery
The institution's official graduate profiles promise these competencies to every student. Bars show measured HCP presence in E2 (engineering service) and E3 (mathematics bachelor's).
Key Anderson/Krathwohl Cells: ILO Count
Four cells selected for professional competency significance. The curriculum's concentration point vs. the cells where professional reasoning would develop.
Intervention Roadmap
All 74 courses were classified by ICHP score and HCP Preparedness Score (HCPPS) into four intervention types. The 24 Type A+B courses (32.4%) represent the immediate opportunity: they already have the cognitive architecture to support HCP integration through targeted ILO revision rather than wholesale redesign. The seven Type A courses — operating under the same institutional constraints as zero-ICHP courses — refute any argument that integration is structurally impossible. The barrier is curricular design choice, not institutional impossibility.
Recommendations
Prioritise the 17 Type B Courses for Targeted ILO Revision
These courses already have the cognitive architecture (higher CCI, some metacognitive content) to support HCP integration with ILO-level edits — no structural redesign required. Reformulating a single ILO per course (for example, adding stakeholder framing to an optimisation problem, or requiring students to evaluate the ethical assumptions embedded in a statistical procedure) can shift a course from ICHP = 0% to ICHP ≥ 17%, while simultaneously advancing ABET compliance at zero additional credit-hour cost.
Move Ethics and Inclusion from Appendage to Integration in E2
The engineering service stratum registers 0.0% presence for both Ethics (D3) and Inclusion (D2) across all 16 courses and 142 ILOs. The data support a curricular integration approach — embedding D3 and D2 indicators directly into existing technical ILOs — rather than adding standalone ethics modules. When students are asked to evaluate the human implications of a mathematical model or analyse the demographic assumptions in a statistical procedure, ethics becomes part of the discipline, not an appendage to it.
Replicate the Instrument Across Engineering and Science Departments
The instrument is fully transferable — it requires only adaptation of polysemy rules to each discipline's vocabulary. Applying it to the engineering and natural sciences catalogues that E2 serves would allow administrators to construct a system-level map of the professional readiness gap: identifying which departments contribute to ABET's human-centred criteria and which are structurally absent from that contribution, enabling evidence-based accreditation strategy at the institutional level.
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